


Stand

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Headspace, POV Castiel (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 14:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18012758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: Castiel tells it as an anecdote: a shore, a fish, a word of advice from his brother. A single, defining moment, easy to understand and appreciate.The truth is always more complicated.





	Stand

**Author's Note:**

> this piece is my contribution to [Glory!: A Castiel Zine](https://castielzine.tumblr.com/). shoutout to the folks who put together this great project and to [kora](http://deathbanjo.tumblr.com/) for the beta!

Castiel tells it as an anecdote: a shore, a fish, a word of advice from his brother. A single, defining moment, easy to understand and appreciate.

The truth is always more complicated. Things were different back then -- before humans, before hubris, before war and rage and doubt. Not a time before time, but one where no one was counting.

There was already pain, though, and strife, and the slow struggle of humanity trying desperately to become. For eons, Castiel watched the world his father set in motion, the chaos and violence of natural selection and evolution, a process and a portent.

He stood on the shore and tried to see the plan.

\--

Humans progressed more quickly than he ever could have imagined, as though getting to shore was the hard part and everything after came easily. As though once they found dry land, they were propelled forward by their own perpetual impatience.

They hunted and gathered and grew and did whatever it took to survive. They discovered fire and gravity and mathematics, they developed language and writing and art, they practiced worship and heresy in equal measure. They built cities up from nothing, brick by brick, and when they failed, they simply tried something new.

From the beginning, humans have always reached higher, gone farther, sought something above and beyond themselves, greater even than the God who had already abandoned them, who was not looking down on them from above.

Uriel found him there, in the spot that had been his favorite since the beginning. It was once a shore, then an empty plain, a hunting ground, the edge of a small settlement, a busy intersection in a vast city. He sighed and asked, “Is this where you’ve been this whole time? Aren’t you bored, Castiel?”

Castiel had smiled to himself. He said, “Never.”

\--

Dean and Sam never seemed to stop moving, not even in sleep.

Castiel had watched humans for years, but he had never known them like this, never been so keenly aware of their fragility, of the finality with which their time together would eventually come to an end.

He tried to catch as many of those brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-them hours that he was afraid would be gone all too quickly. He watched Dean as he slept, found him fascinating even when he was at rest, mouth making soft noises as he shifted from one position to the next, eyes twitching behind their lids as he dreamed.

Castiel sat and watched and weighed those moments against the millennia. He wondered, sometimes, if he would forget once they’re gone. If his memories of Sam and Dean would be crushed under the weight of the entirety of human history and it would be like they never existed, like he never knew what it felt like to be there, to have friends, to be thought of as family. Like it never happened at all.

\--

There was an urgency to everything that came with being human.

He could feel time passing in the space between one breath and the next. The beating of his own heart seemed perpetually loud in his own ears; it kept him up at night, made him toss and turn, unable to ever find a moment’s peace.

He had to force himself to stand still, to reach out into the world with his limited senses, to focus on something beyond himself.

As he stood on a busy sidewalk and watched people go about their lives, driving or walking or racing to wherever they needed to go, tiny dramas unfolded in front of him, cacophonies of sight and sound and smell. There were muttered curses over coffee spilled on a businessman’s nice suit, piercing shouts as a mother dragged her crying child by the hand, screeching tires and burning rubber as someone caused a minor car accident by paying too much attention to their phone.

It took more effort to catch the small kindnesses; they were subtler, quieter. The clink of coins as strangers dropped change into a beggar’s cup. Murmured reassurances as a young woman helped an older woman who tripped on the curb. Joy as old friends met for breakfast, catching up over hazelnut coffee and chocolate pastries. Delight as a child was enthralled by a musician playing on the opposite corner, music barely audible over the traffic. People, everywhere, smiled at each other like it was no trouble at all.

\--

The concrete bunker is cold beneath his legs as he sits with his feet dangling over the edge of the roof. He watches as the sky slowly darkens, as it shifts from blue to orange and pink and gold.

The door behind him opens with a creak. “Hey,” Sam says. “Thought we might find you up here.”

“Jesus, it’s cold,” Dean says.

Cas pats the spot next to him without turning. Sam takes a seat first, handing him a blanket from the stack he’s carrying. Dean comes next, passing him a mug of coffee once he’s settled in.

Together, they sit in silence, sipping their drinks as they watch the sun set. Once it slips behind the horizon, they lay on their backs and look up at the stars, so clear out here where there’s so little light pollution. They light up the sky like a blueprint for creation, a vast and beautiful plan too intricate to ever fully understand.

“This is nice,” Dean says.

Cas smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> [here's](http://domesticadventures.tumblr.com/post/183251934177/) a rebloggable version on tumblr, if you're so inclined!


End file.
